Heretofore, as a water-based black ink for ink-jet recording, an ink comprising a black dye and water has been used widely. Also, there has been proposed various water-based black inks that use a black dye in combination with dyes of other colors such as yellow, magenta, and cyan for the purpose of improving hue. However, these water-based black inks do not have sufficient light resistance.
Furthermore, in ink-jet recording, forming achromatic colors (for example, colors within the range of gradations from black to gray) by mixing three primary color inks, namely, a yellow ink, a magenta ink, and a cyan ink, on a recording medium at the time of recording is performed widely. However, by this method, when recording deep black, the total amount of the three primary color inks ejected might exceed the ink absorption capacity of the recording medium. On this account, for recording of achromatic colors, it is desirable to use a water-based black ink.